1-2 Overview
SAS technology brings a wealth of options and flexibility with the use of
SAS devices and SATA II devices within the same storage infrastructure.
However, SAS devices and SATA devices bring individual characteristics
that make each one a more suitable choice depending on your storage
needs. MegaRAID
®
gives you the flexibility to combine these two similar
technologies on the same controller and within the same enclosure.
Note:
You cannot mix SAS drives and SATA drives within the
same virtual disk(s).
The ServeRAID M5014 and ServeRAID M5015 controllers are based on
the MegaRAID first-to-market SAS IC technology and proven technology.
As the second-generation PCI Express controllers, they address the
growing demand for increased data throughput and scalability
requirements across midrange and enterprise-class server platforms.
IBM offers a family of SAS controllers to address the needs for both
internal solutions and external solutions.
The ServeRAID M5000 Series Battery Assembly is pre-installed on the
ServeRAID M5015 controller to provide battery-protected backup of
cached memory. The assembly provides protection of cached data,
which allows system builders to protect cached data even during the
most catastrophic system failures.
Note:
The ServeRAID M5000 Series Battery Assembly is not pre-
installed on the ServeRAID M5014 controller but you can
install it. See Section 5.1, “Installing the ServerRAID M5000
Series Battery Assembly on a Controller” for installation
instructions.
Note:
You must charge the battery before use. See Chapter 4,
“Intro to the ServeRAID M5000 Series Battery Assembly,”
for more information about the battery backup unit.
The ServeRAID M5000 Series Advanced Feature Key enables support
for RAID 6 configurations and self-encrypting disks (SED) on the
ServeRAID M5015 SAS/SATA controller. The ServeRAID M5000 Series
Advanced Feature Key mounts directly on the controller. See Chapter 8,
“Installing a ServeRAID M5000 Series Advanced Feature Key” for
installation instructions.
The controller supports the SAS protocol as described in the Serial
Attached SCSI Standard, version 2.0. It also supports the Serial ATA II